Our Ambassador’s first interview with the Kehayah had for its primary object a demand of the greatest delicacy, though no way connected with English interests in the Levant: a sort of “side-show” springing out of Charles II.’s secret diplomacy and directed from the inmost recesses of the Cabal. Whether Finch knew the dark inwardness of the policy he served can only be matter of conjecture: his despatches are too guarded.[106] But certain it is that he threw himself unflinchingly into measures which he knew to be agreeable to his master and his patron, Lord Arlington. The custody of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem had for ages supplied an apple of discord between Greek and Latin monks, who fought for the tomb of the Prince of Peace with more rancour than monarchs ever displayed in their struggles for temporal gains. It was not the ownership of the holy places, which belonged to the Grand Signor; it was not even the exclusive occupation of them that the unholy contest raged about. The whole feud was for certain honorific privileges or tokens of pre-eminence, such as the right to decorate a shrine, to light the lamps, or to keep the keys of a church. For these trifles both sects were prepared to spend thousands in corrupting the pashas of the Divan with whom the decision lay, and, besides, the Latin friars in Palestine, though being Spaniards, they had no ambassador of their own to assist them, enjoyed the diplomatic support of France, of Germany, of Venice, and of Poland. The Greeks would fain rely on their wits and their dollars. So equipped, each sect had alternately turned the other out. When M. de Nointel came to Turkey in 1670, he found the dispute in progress: it was one of the aims of his mission to have it settled in favour of the Latins, and on renewing the French Capitulations, in the summer of 1673, he had, as he imagined, carried his point. The Greeks, however, had at that time a powerful champion in the First Dragoman of the Porte, Panayoti Nicusi, commonly called by the diminutive Panayotaki--an exceedingly clever and accomplished Greek, who easily persuaded the Vizir of the impolicy of taking the custody of the Holy Sepulchre from subjects of the Grand Signor and giving it to the protégés of foreign Powers--Powers which once owned the Holy Land and hoped to own it again: religious penetration being but the first step to ultimate conquest. A Hattisherif was, accordingly, handed to Panayoti, confirming the Greek claim. But, as Germany and the other European Powers whom Panayoti, before entering the service of the Porte, had served in the capacity of interpreter, were patrons of the Latins, and Panayoti did not wish to appear as his former employers’ opponent, the grant remained dormant until after his death, which took place in October 1673. Once the Dragoman safe in his grave, his countrymen produced the document and asserted their rights. The feud had reached its climax at Easter 1674, when M. de Nointel was on the spot.